Inflections are often considered ways to “dress up” a basic note. Slides are the first and simplest way to inflect a note on the guitar. They make basic melodies come alive.

To achieve a proper slide, begin by playing any fretted note on the guitar with your first finger. (You can use any finger to slide, but the first finger is easier to slide at first.) Let's start with the seventh fret on the G string—the note D. Strike the seventh fret and quickly slide your first finger up to the ninth fret E on the same string. That's a two-fret slide. If you keep the pressure of your finger down on the string while you slide, the note will continue to sound. However, if you let your finger release the pressure while you slide, you may lose the volume of the note. Keeping downward pressure is essential to a good slide. It's important to know that you pick only the first note, and you don't need to restrike the note at the end of the slide. It's like riding a bike—you pedal once and then coast on the energy you create. Pick once, and transfer the sound up one fret by sliding.

It's a great effect. As you practice sliding, you'll become faster and more adept at keeping the correct pressure on the string. FIGURE 4-1 shows you the slide I just described.

Slide Options

What can you do with a slide? Anything you want. You can slide from above or below any note you want. You can even slide from great distances above a note, as long as you slide on the same string! Slides are very useful for softening the attack on the second note you play. When you pick every note you play, the effect can be broken and choppy. By using a lot of slides, you pick less. Slides help achieve a smooth, polished, and professional sound.

Slides also give a slippery effect from note to note, because you are sliding through chromatic notes. Chromatic notes are the notes, or semitones, between normal scale tones. By sliding, you connect the scale tones with the other, less frequently played notes.

One important aspect of sliding that you must understand is that you need to slide into the destination note; you can't just slide aimlessly. For a good example of this, look at FIGURE 4-2, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”

The first line of music shows the bare example with no slides. The second line of music shows how you can dress up a simple melody with slides. Notice that the slides in this example all start below the melody notes. If the fifth fret is the melody note, start on a lower fret and slide into the fifth fret. This is what the term “destination” means; you have to know where you're sliding to. You can always slide from either one or two frets below any key melody note. Let your ear be the ultimate judge of when and how to slide.

Pentatonic with Slides

A great place to use the sliding technique is the pentatonic scale. FIGURE 4-3 takes the basic minor pentatonic scale and adds a few slides into some of the notes played with the first finger.

This simple inflection transforms the scale into something much more than just a scale—now it's music. FIGURE 4-4 uses slides from above notes of the major pentatonic scale. Notice how this slide gives us a “bluesy” feel. Slides are pivotal to understanding blues playing.

There is no limit to what you can slide. Use your imagination and, most important, your ears to create examples of your own. As a fan, you should study your favorite players and listen to the subtle slides that are a part of their playing.